Movie Reviews
War Games
When I was working at MGM in the ‘80s they had this war room set on the lot. I wandered by one day when shooting had just wrapped, and they had begun to tear it down. It was my first experience in how shoddy movie sets are. They were clearing it out almost as fast as the trucks could arrive. This was a very high-tech set for its time, with all the consoles and especially the large ... Read more »
A Big Hand for the Little Lady
I don’t imagine there are many film buffs out there who don’t know about the surprise ending of this one, but I’m not going to spoil it here. All I can really say is that I am a lover of movies about con games, and this is one of the best ever made. It had me fooled. All the actors are wonderful, and it’s a real change of pace for Henry Fonda and Joanne Woodward.
The War
Each of the seven episodes of this Ken Burns documentary begins with these words:
The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting. This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war.
How are you going to tackle something with the scope and breadth, sacrifices and bravery and sheer horror of World War ... Read more »
The Big Fix
I believe one should, if at all possible, separate an artist from his or her works. Gaugin was a piece of shit, but I still like his paintings. Wagner was despicable, but that doesn’t make The Ride of the Valkyries bad music. Mel Gibson is an anti-Semitic turd, but he’s made some good movies. Tom Cruise is a total nut, but he’s a good actor. These are extreme ... Read more »
Wanted
Another comic book. And I thought it was sort of interesting—even though bloody and sadistic, but that goes with the territory, doesn’t it?—for about the first hour. Shooting the wings off flies and making bullets curve with your mind fall within the parameters of speculative fiction, I have no problem with that. (I do wonder, though, how in some scenes Angelina Jolie can curve the ... Read more »
Waltzes From Vienna
Waltzes From Vienna (Strauss’ Great Waltz) (1934) Hitchcock described this film as the lowest point in his career. He had no real interest in it, but he had to do something, He had just come off of the pretty bad Rich and Strange, followed by the truly awful Number Seventeen. His next film would be the classic The Man Who Knew Too Much, and he would follow that with a long string of ... Read more »
Big Fish
Sometimes a director makes a movie where it is obvious it came from the heart. Francis Ford Coppola even called his One From the Heart. It bombed; it just didn’t seem to connect with anyone but him. For Barry Levinson it was Toys, which just plain didn’t work. Martin Scorsese had been planning Gangs of New ... Read more »
Waltz With Bashir
Here’s a movie that was one of the major upsets of the 2009 Oscar ceremonies. It was considered a shoo-in to win for Best Foreign Film, but it lost out to a Japanese entry. I wonder why? Possibly the stodgy old Academy members just couldn’t get behind an animated movie as Best Foreign Film. Or possibly, since it is an Israeli film that doesn’t depict Israel in a good light, the large ... Read more »
The Big Easy
Because of recent events we both felt we should see this again, even though we’d both seen it half a dozen times. It’s worth it for all sorts of reasons, including recalling what New Orleans looked like before most of it was underwater. Seldom has a movie captured the spirit of a city, good and bad, as this one. And, of course, there are few cities in the world that are more uniquely ... Read more »
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Online translation renders the Italian title as The Unknown Habits. (Habitual criminals? All these people are.) Alternate titles are Big Deal (USA), Persons Unknown (UK), and The Usual Unidentified Thieves. I might suggest The Usual Suspects … though ... Read more »